


i put the "home" in homewrecker

by whochanwoo



Series: times jeno thinks jaemin lives up to his "special friend" title [8]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Age Difference, CEO Lee Jeno, Coming Out, Falling In Love, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Infidelity, Jeno has a son, M/M, Secret Relationship, Soft Lee Jeno/Na Jaemin, also hehe, and au pair Jaemin, but like not really, idk what to tag oh no
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:34:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27406639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whochanwoo/pseuds/whochanwoo
Summary: As Jaemin sits next to Jaeha, across Jeno, and he manages to entertain the little one well while running a foot up Jeno’s leg, the thrill traps Jeno back in the game.Love is many things, and it starts out as a game.
Relationships: Lee Jeno/Na Jaemin
Series: times jeno thinks jaemin lives up to his "special friend" title [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1838488
Comments: 10
Kudos: 119





	i put the "home" in homewrecker

**Author's Note:**

> i was inspired by several things like (1) bly manor, (2) 6 cups of hot chocolate downed in approximately 30mins, (3) and the idea of falling out of love and back in again.

Jeno hasn’t seen his wife this disappointed in his entire life. He hasn’t seen Yeri give him that look ever since that dreadful day he had broken the news to her. She had pinned her icy gaze on him, in utter defeat, in absolute silence, and he hadn’t cowered for once.

“I’m gay,” Jeno had confessed, clear as day, “I have been for quite some time, honestly.” 

And Yeri had stared for minutes on end. At one point it felt like she was sucking the life out of him, but Jeno had persisted. He stood his ground, looked right back into her eyes, and hadn’t cowered away. 

This time, when she looks at him with that same defeated stare, Jeno confidently turns his head away and sees Jaemin tricking Jaeha into snack time instead of playing. His heart warms at the sight of his son, and Jaemin, standing in the open courtyard, the nature enveloping them, happy. When he turns back to Yeri, and his heart beats grey into his system, he realises just what he wants.

“I love him,” Jeno had said before all of this, “with all of my heart.” 

“What would he think?” Yeri speaks up for the first time after Jeno’s confession. 

“Jaeha would be fine. He’s a smart kid, he’ll understand in no time.” 

“I’m not talking about Jaeha,” Yeri purses her lips tight, stopping herself from crying out, “I’m talking about your dad. Do you want him to know? I’ll tell him. God help me, I will.”

Before Jeno could respond, Jaeha comes trotting along, beaming wide. “Daddy! Jaemin said he’ll make me biscuits in every flavour I want.” 

“Is that right?” Jeno mirrors the joyful expression on his son’s face, looking up to meet Jaemin’s eyes. He speaks to his son, but his gaze lingers on Jaemin’s poised figure standing to the side. “Will Jaemin make some for Daddy too?” 

“I’ll prepare cookies for you, Mr. Lee… if you want,” Jaemin mutters aloud, scratching around his wrist as he fidgets on the spot. He’s polite enough to put some semblance of pretense up whenever Jeno’s wife is around, but it never fails to put him on edge. 

“I’d love that,” Jeno smiles even wider, eyes disappearing, his sight thinning. “Thank you.” 

Jaemin nods, bows, before he turns to head to the kitchen with Jaeha hot on his trail. Before he disappears into the house, he looks back and he sees Jeno’s eyes still on him. He does what he shouldn’t have while Jeno’s wife watches; Jaemin winks.

Once they’re out of earshot, out of eyesight, silence ensues. Jeno takes a deep breath in. Laughing just a little under his breath, he turns to his wife with one of the biggest grins he’s ever displayed in her presence these past few years. 

“Yeri, at this point, I don’t care anymore.” Tears well up in his eyes as he speaks, but Jeno’s quick to wipe them away. “For that one alone… yes, for him, I’d take a heartbreak anytime. I love him, Yeri, and he knows.”

For that one alone, Jeno thinks, he’d risk the heartbreak. For Jaemin, Jeno thinks.

“And you know what, Yeri?” His voice drops into a whisper, and it swirls with the afternoon breeze. It’s so cold, yet the Sun hangs high. As the wind picks up and fetches his worries along the way, Jeno cranes his head to the side and he sees Yeri already trembling with unshed tears. Like a prayer, like a wish, Jeno mutters, “He loves me twice as much.” 

  
  
  
  
  


When Jaemin first moved in, it took all of Jeno’s efforts not to put the poor boy in an uncomfortable situation. It’s been 4 years since he came out to his wife, and they’ve been estranged ever since. A divorce would only tarnish Jeno’s family name, but they couldn’t find it in them to pretend like nothing happened. This resulted in a thick tension hanging over their heads every passing second that goes by. 

Jeno and his wife, Yeri, simply fell out of love. Jeno first before her. And he fell for such a long time.

Falling out of love is like falling down an empty well. Or, that’s what Jeno felt like it was. No matter what he did, no matter what he didn’t do, there would always be this emptiness within him. Someone did say love was like a drug. Maybe this is just a phase of healing, like a drawback, like cold turkey. 

That’s when Jaemin comes into the picture, all crinkled smiles and flowery words. He was so polite, too tense, and the pretense had gone on for two months, so Jeno invited him to one of their family dinners. 

As Jaemin sits next to Jaeha, across Jeno, and he manages to entertain the little one well while running a foot up Jeno’s leg, the thrill traps Jeno back in the game.

Love is many things, and it starts out as a game. 

Love is a story, and Jeno’s been thrown right into the fate of a main character who’s clueless of his power. 

One may call Jaemin a homewrecker, but Jeno thinks otherwise. There was no home to wreck. There was no family to disrupt. That delusion faded away years ago, way before Jeno came out as gay. Even Jaeha knows, even he sees how his parents share different rooms, how his Mommy barely speaks anymore. 

In fact, it was Yeri who had hired Jaemin as an extra pair of eyes to look after Jaeha. It’s a live-in position, and clever, bright, enthusiastic Jaemin had fallen right into the carcasses of a rotting marriage. 

Ten months into Jaemin’s stay, Jeno found himself wanting to come home earlier and earlier each and every day. He wanted to come back home. He was home once again. 

He fell out of love with Yeri, and back in once again as he sneaks around the house with Jaemin, acting like middle school kids who aren’t supposed to be dating just yet. He fell in love once again as a pair of arms snake around his neck, pulling him closer, closer, and so much closer. 

Jeno kisses Jaemin unlike a middle schooler afraid of getting caught. He kisses Jaemin like it’s his first deep breath in after years of drowning in the huge sea; drowning but never dying. Jaemin holds onto him tight, like Jeno himself grounds him like never before. 

Jeno pins Jaemin to the wall, and he takes, and takes, and takes. Jaemin gives, and gives, and he gives. 

If Yeri hears the faint moans and the occasional thud against the walls, she doesn’t ever say anything. 

  
  
  
  
  


“What’s your story?” Jeno leans back on the backrest of the bench, awaiting Jaemin’s answer as he stares up at the stars. He’s rarely used the patio, but now’s a great chance.

“My story?” Jaemin’s tone rides up towards the end. It’s adorable. 

With fondness, Jeno holds out his bottle of beer to Jaemin’s lips and tips a little of it in. “Your story.”

“Let’s see,” Jaemin swallows the drink before chuckling nervously, “I’m 20 this year. I was born and raised in the city, but what brought me here was my mom. She fell sick. Um, cancer, and the hospital here is best for that, I heard. My dad left the scene when I was 3, and he comes back sometimes to ask for money.” 

Jeno leans over to place his beer on the table, pressing up against Jaemin as he does so. Smoothly, he plants a small kiss on the side of Jaemin’s temple. 

“I, u-um, I used to want to be a doctor. I wanted to help people as much as I could, a-and I still do.” Jaemin flushes red from the attention, trying his best not to meet Jeno’s piercing gaze. “I want to mean something to someone one day. I want to get up on my own two feet and be proud of myself.”

“Those are some high ambitions for someone so young,” No malice crosses Jeno’s mind as he comments, and Jaemin knows. “But you can do it. Bit by bit. Milestones aren’t destinations, they’re a journey.” 

“What about you?” Jaemin scoots closer, laying his head down on Jeno’s chest as they shift to embrace each other. “What’s your story?” 

“Mine is dull.” Jeno’s voice rumbles in his chest, and Jaemin feels it against his ear. Butterflies swarm his insides as Jeno’s warmth surrounds him. “Mine is really dull. I’m 27. My dad’s your typical Chairman, my marriage was your typical arranged one. 

“Mhm.”

“We were genuinely in love, though, but after we had Jaeha and exhaustion took over, it just… stopped. For me. I realised what my heart would quicken its pace to, what caught my attention and what didn’t.” 

It’s cold tonight, but not nearly as it had been years ago when Jeno would hate himself for who he is. Till he saw a man leaving the house as he pulled up in the driveway.

There he was, a random man with tousled hair, unbuttoned shirt, loosened tie. Inside, Yeri tried to hide the mess on the bed, tried to hide the smell of sex in the air. Jeno knew what had gone on. So he smiled, came out, and got it over with. He no longer felt guilt consume him, no longer felt anything weighing him down.

“And then I met you.” Jeno pokes the tip of Jaemin’s nose with his finger, laughing at the way Jaemin scrunches his face up. 

He feels free now, like some part of him knew this is who he’s meant to love. 

“And then I met you,” Jaemin echoes after him, beaming like he’s proud of saying so.

  
  
  
  
  


Whenever Jeno’s father comes over just to see Jaeha, that’s the only time Jeno fears losing Jaemin. One wrong word, one wrong move, and they’d be exposed. His father’s a terrifying man; all gruff words and strict demands. 

He takes an odd liking to Jaemin—seeing how well Jaemin treats his grandson—and he doesn’t notice the hints Yeri clues him in. When he leaves after dinner, Jeno corners Yeri in the kitchen to confront her.

He slides a photo of the man she slept with the day he came out. Pointing to it, he asks, “Recognise him?”

“Why do you do this to me?” Yeri tries to play victim. She can try. 

“If my father hears about this, and he throws you out, and you flounder like a fish out of water with no job and no money, what are you going to do then?” Jeno threatens her. 

He doesn’t want to. He didn’t want to, but for Jaemin to stay and in fear of losing him, Jeno does what he has to do. It’s not like him to speak up about anything at all, but Yeri has gone dangerously too far. 

“What would Jaeha think?” Yeri sobs into her hand as she crumbles onto the kitchen floor, hoping that somewhere within him, Jeno would be urged to pick her up and console her. 

He turns away instead, huffing angrily before she hears him calling out for Jaemin.

Falling out of love is a cruelty on its own. It’s silent, so painfully obvious, but everyone ignores it. It’s like the last breaths of life. You’d know you’d have final moments, eventually, and that thought is there, creeping up on you. Like an impending doom you can’t quite keep your mind off. Cruel. Exactly like falling out of love. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


Jaeha, as it turns out, doesn’t think anything of the situation now. He’s only 7. He’s happy with whomever he spends time with—be it his mother, his father, or Jaemin. Though, as a kid of his age, there will always be questions no adult in their right mind would find appropriate asking.

At one of the dinners, Jaeha swings his legs merrily while munching on the biscuits Jaemin had freshly baked for him. He looks around at the quietude around the table before sighing.

Looking up with wide eyes, Jaemin warily asks, “What’s wrong, buddy?”

“I’m just a little worried,” Jaeha says with a pout.

At this statement, all three adults perk up in their seats. Jeno clears his throat before he questions his son, “Worried about what, baby?” 

“I don’t know what would fit Jaemin; Papa, or Dada.” Jaeha bores his gaze into Jaemin’s shocked eyes and grins, exposing the jarring holes in between his teeth. He turns to Jeno, only to meet the same surprise on his father’s face. “What do you think, Daddy?” 

“You think of Jaemin the same as you think of us?” Yeri mutters, her voice quivering as she tries her best to keep her cool. 

“Yes! He cares about me and he loves me, and he’s Daddy's partner!” Jaeha smizes at Jaemin’s disbelieving gape. “Papa sounds nicer, doesn’t it?” 

Instinctively, so Jaeha wouldn’t be left ignored, Jaemin nods to the question. “P-Papa sounds nicer.”

It’s a little too late to take back after both Jeno and Yeri have witnessed him clearly agreeing to the notion. He’s accepted Jaeha as a son, of sorts, and it speaks volumes of how far he’s fallen for Jeno. 

It brightens Jeno’s mood, but it dampens Yeri’s. She springs to a stand, cringing as the chair scrapes against the floor with a screech. She throws Jaemin a look full of disdain before leaving with her plate. 

  
  
  
  
  


“Jeno, I’m not stupid.” His dad lights a cigar up as he speaks. “I’ve had plenty of signs and hints here and there from my grandson, Yeri, and you. You and that Jaemin kid, huh?” 

Jeno tenses up. He straightens up in his seat, eyes darting to his dad who just smiles in silence. “What do you mean?” 

“Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about, young man.” Jeno’s dad guffaws. “I’m not mad, so don’t worry.”

“What?” Jeno thinks he’s dreaming. “You’re not?” 

“No! Why would I be? My grandson loves him!” His dad’s still boisterously laughing while Jeno trembles in his dress shoes. “And after he came along, you’ve done your job three times better! You sealed that deal with that chinese company, and that russian one! This kid’s my life saver!”

“I thought you were homophobic.” Jeno frowns.

“I don’t have time to be homophobic and atychiphobic.” 

“Aty—what?” Jeno scratches the back of his head a little too aggressively, grimacing along as his dad gives him a humorous look.

“Fear of failure.” Smoke swirls as he blows it out. “I just wanted to tell you to let Yeri go. Since we’ve already secured that contract with the two foreign companies, what we do now won’t affect our image. Or, at least it won’t affect our financial sector.”

“What if she doesn’t want to leave?” 

“Money,” his dad coolly throws out as a suggestion. “Money will solve most of your problems.”

  
  
  
  
  


Jaemin comes back one day only to see a lack of someone, a lack of someone’s belongings. A lack of Yeri. He checks her room and sees the bed made, sees her wardrobe all emptied out, doesn’t see her shoes in the closet. He doesn’t know why, but instant relief overcomes him when he figures out that she’s gone for good. 

He picks Jaeha up from school in a happy mood. He starts preparing dinner in a happy mood. He greets Jeno at the door with a happy kiss. 

“Someone’s happy,” Jeno plays along, his eyes disappearing behind pretty crescents as he chuckles at Jaemin’s gleeful aura. 

“Why?” Jaemin quietly mumbles out. 

“It was my dad’s idea to kick her out. He knows about us.” 

“Of course,” Jaemin cackles, “he heard Jaeha call me Papa once.”

“That kid…” Jeno sighs out.

A beat of silence. Jeno pulls Jaemin into an intimate hug by the doorway as he breathes in the smell of home-cooked dinner. Jaemin smells like pasta, but that’s exactly what warms Jeno’s heart. 

So domestic, so much like home. 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> this was just an excuse for me to write a sad marriage, smh how can i ever write happy hets 😐 KENDJFJ but on a serious note!! like always in my works, fact and scenes i couldnt fit in;
> 
> 1) i was planning on making jaem 20 and jeno 29 but i cannot for the life of me imagine him at 29. like,,, 27 was fine and 28 was meh but i simply cannot tell what he'd look like at 29. 
> 
> 2) jaemin does end up taking private classes as sponsored by jeno and he does end up working as a nurse (not a doc but hes still in the medical field) 
> 
> 3) if u know where the name jaeha comes from you're literally my fucking best friend idc. 
> 
> 4) this really isnt cheating because in a legal sense altho jen and yeri were still tgt, they've already made it clear that they dont love each other. its so obvious that even jaemin doesnt think its wrong to shoot his shot. 
> 
> 5) jenos dad is strictly a businessman. manz has no time to be a homophobe and i respect that. so when jeno started to bring in better results after jaemin motivated him to work, his dad was like oh man tis good news. 
> 
> 6) i wanted to try out this premise since i have always wanted to write about person A being in an unhappy marriage and finding solace in person B. i might write similar tropes in the future cos i like it. 
> 
> 7) nobody:  
> me: jeno... ✍🏽 eyes... ✍🏽 pretty... ✍🏽 crescents... ✍🏽 
> 
> 8) jenos dad: i dont have time for anything but that... i may have time for that thing.  
> that thing: is jaeha. 
> 
> i rlly hope you enjoyed reading this as much as i enjoyed putting my assignment to the side to write it hehe. 
> 
> i always love love comments, i always reply to comments so pls leave them and let me know what you thought of this hehe
> 
> my [IG](https://www.instagram.com/warmdaelight/) | [TWT](https://twitter.com/jenoryy)  
> 


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